Fallujah, November 3rd

The US presidential elections are now only a week away. Many within the anti-war movement have got very excited about the whole charade and are convinced that Kerry is somehow going to be a massive improvement Dubya. Unfortunately the differences between the two are slight to nonexistent in most areas, particularly as regards Iraq. Whoever wins, we can expect to see massive US assaults on cities which they do not currently control, in the aftermath. Fallujah, being but the most prominent among these. Voices UK note,

On 11 Oct the Los Angeles Times reported that, according to US officials, the 'Bush administration plans to delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November ... mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race.' "When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," a senior official involved in strategic planning told the paper. "Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications [of a large-scale offensive]. We're not on hold right now. We're just not as aggressive."

Given that we know that the assault is coming, we have some hope of stopping it. If we fail, the consequences for the populations of Fallujah, Ramadi and perhaps elsewhere, are grim.

A US official told washingtonpost.com on October 16 that, "If we have to fight in Fallujah it’s going to be very bloody and nasty." You only need to look to the last major assault on the city in April for evidence of just how accurate this statement is likely to be. The April assault was nothing short of a massacre, as Voices make clear:

- Hundreds of Iraqis were killed, many of them civilians. On 11 April the director of Fallujah’s general hospital, Rafie al-Issawi, estimated – on the basis of figures gathered from four clinics around the city as well as the hospital itself - that more than 600 people had been killed and that ‘the vast majority of the dead were women, children and the elderly’ (Guardian, 12 April).

- Warplanes, fighter bombers, military helicopters, gunships and remotely piloted Predator reconnaissance aircraft were all used in the attack on the city (New York Times, 30 April 2004). Houses - and at least one mosque - were attacked from the air, reportedly killing scores of civilians:

* ‘An airborne assault on a mosque killed at least 40 worshippers attending prayers’ on 7 April and ’16 children and eight women were reported to have been killed when US aircraft hit four houses’ the previous day (Independent, 8 April).

* Menem Latif Hussain told the Guardian how a house at the end of his street suffered from a direct hit from a powerful bomb. “We ran to the house because they were my friends. In the garden I saw three men had been sitting on a bench. They were all dead, they had been cut in half by the bomb’ (Guardian, 24 April).

- There were numerous press reports of US snipers firing on – and killing – unarmed civilians:

* Mohammed Hadi, told the Telegraph that US marines snipers had taken up position in the minarets of a local mosque and shot dead his neighbour (12 April). “He was just on his way to buy tomatoes,” he told the paper. And 17-year-old Hassan Monem, who claimed that two of his friends ‘were shot as they stood in my yard.’

* Likewise, Ali, 28, who had managed to escape with part of his family, related how “one man in an Opel drove his wife and children to the bridge so they would walk over. As he drove back to town, an American sniper killed him” (Guardian, 12 April).

* Abu Mohammed (30) told the Guardian that as he “was about to leave [Fallujah] there were two ladies trying to get out. American snipers shot them dead. Their bodies are still lying out on the street in al-Jumhuriya” (30 April).

One US Marine Major told Time magazine that it was “hard to differentiate between people who are insurgents or civilians. You just have to go with your gut feeling.” (Time, 11 April). A marine corporal explained that “Sometimes a guy will go down and I’ll let him scream a bit to destroy the morale of his buddies,” a marine corporal explained. “Then I’ll use a second shot” (Daily Oakland Press, 17 April).

A senior UK army officer, told the Sunday Telegraph that “when US troops are attacked with mortars in Baghdad they use mortar-locating radar to find the firing point and then attack the general area with artillery, even though the area they are attacking may be in the middle of a densely populated residential area … They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are’, ‘they view [Iraqis] as untermenschen [the Nazi expression for “sub-humans”]. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it’s awful’ (11 April).

- Several reports strongly suggested that US snipers targeted ambulances in Fallujah. The head of mission of a European humanitarian agency with staff in Fallujah told BBC News Online that two of their ambulances had been shot at ‘probably by US snipers’ (BBC, 23 April); and a UK national, Jo Wilding, was present in a clearly marked ambulance that she claims was shot at by US snipers (see www.wildfirejo.org.uk/feature/display/114/index.php).

- The New York Times reported that at least one battalion [in Fallujah] had ‘orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not (14 April). Recounting how he shot dead ‘an Iraqi man … walking down the street in no-man’s land … [who had] his hands suspiciously in his pockets’, Corporal Ryan Long from Alpha Company explained: “I got one of my juniors to fire a warning shot, but the guy kept on walking, so I said: ‘Let me do it’ … Last year I’d have never shot a guy without a weapon’’ (Times, 15 April).

- So many Iraqis were killed that the Fallujah Sports Club was turned into a makeshift cemetery. Times reporter Stephen Farrell counted 32 graves on the pitch and 180 more on the practice park, including the graves of Omar (9, killed 9 April), Wisam Salah (eight months) and Mohammed Khalaf (15 months) (Times, 3 May). ‘The gravediggers said the cemetery was full of women and children’ (New York Times, 27 April).

- ‘The city’s main hospital … was closed by the marines’ and, according to the Iraq emergency co-ordinator for Medicins sans Frontieres – who visited Fallujah during the fighting – “The Americans put a sniper on top of the hospital’s water tower” in violation of the Geneva Convention (Guardian, 24 April).

We cannot stand by and let this happen again.

Voices are encouraging people to write to their MPs expressing their opposition to the planned attacks, reminding them of the horrors of the April assault and calling for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq. The Stop the War Coalition are also calling for decentralised actions in the event that a ground assault goes ahead. Nottingham Student Peace Movement are planning to mobilise around the issue and we encourage you to get involved. The world is watching. Fallujah needs you, as does humanity.

Freedom, Security, Peace?

There were literally hundreds of meetings, seminars, workshops and plenaries taking place at the ESF, many of them with titles which amounted to little more than slogans, while others read like the title to some dry academic thesis. Nonetheless a few stuck out when reading the programme - which stretched to 70-odd pages - and demanded that I attend. One such event was a seminar on Saturday entitled, "Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians: Fighting Racism, Fighting the Occupation," organised by European Jews for a Just Peace.

The seminar was addressed by various speakers who had all been involved in efforts to bring Jews and Arabs together in pursuit of peace. Two speakers from France discussed their efforts to bring together a Jewish organisation and one made up Moroccan immigrants with not inconsiderable success. Another was an Israeli who had lost their sister in a suicide bombing and who spoke on behalf of the Bereaved Parents Forum. A women from the Jerusalem Women's Centre and Al-Quds University recounted her experiences of working to bring together women from both sides of the divide. A further women, a "Palestinian-Israeli" (although an Arab and an Israeli citizen she strongly rejected the term Arab Israeli) spoke about her experiences working in Ta'ayush (the name comes from the Arabic for living together) a campaign group made up of Arabs and Israelis.

The speaker from the Bereaved Parents Forum was particularly interesting. The organisation was set up in 1994 and has made various efforts to end the conflict. They have provided phones to allow Israelis and Palestinians to talk for free, enabling 1 million conversations to take place. They have also carried out blood transfers, using blood collected from one side to help the other (I think this went both ways, but I'm not entirely sure). The speaker also revealed that he was a member of Courage to Refuse, one of the organisations supporting refuseniks within the Israeli Defence Force, and called for people to come from around the world and help end the conflict and the occupation.

The speaker from Ta'ayush offered another interesting perspective. The organisation has some 300 active members, from both communities, although 70% were Jewish. They did, however, have a large email list. Their demands were of particular interest, as they called for freedom for both peoples, security and peace and were clear that they must be achieved in that order. This seems to me much more realistic than the demands of Sharon that security come first and that everything will then follow at some indeterminate point in the future, an approach which leaves the whole process under the control of the extremists.

The question and answer section was actually quite constructive and avoided descending into sloganeering and shouting. One contribution came from a refusenik who called for support for a female refusenik about to face the Supreme Court. This is presumably Laura Milo, details on whom are available here. Another said that they were seeking to hold a meeting bringing together refuseniks from the French campaign in Algeria with Israeli refuseniks and suggested something similar might be possible with those refusing to serve in the occupation of Iraq, a very interesting idea which might merit looking into.

Heard it on the Grapevine

From the latest edition of Grapevine (the University of Nottingham Students' Union newsletter, for those of you not in the know):

The Students’ Union Education Officer, Alex Hawkins, will be spending a week in Malaysia from 7th October as part of a team assessing the quality of students’ education at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. His role will be to ensure that student views are heard in the process.

To highlight the manner in which University money is spent, Alex has downgraded his flight from business to economy class and will be staying in a youth hostel instead of a hotel. A quick search online finds a business class flight to Malaysia for £2470 while an economy class flight is only £489. A saving of one thousand nine hundred and eighty one pounds, for just a few less inches of legroom and a slightly rougher meal!

We are becoming an international university, with another campus recently opened in China. Senior staff at the University fly around the world business class, not only to these campuses but to many other international events. If the Vice Chancellor flew economy then there might be enough money to pay for an extra counsellor or member of academic staff.

The University’s international focus may be intended to make profits and increase the global reputation of the University in the long term, but what about its’ obligations in the short term? The University has to remember that now, more than ever, it is financially accountable to its’ students.

Alex is requesting that some of what he is saving the University should be spent on buying 100 energy saving light bulbs for students, so that the whole trip can be made carbon neutral.

I'm usually one of the first people to criticise the SU, so it makes a nice change to be able to applaud them for something.

Stuff You Should Know About Uzbekistan

The de facto British alliance with Islam Karimov's Uzbekistan returned to the pages of the papers in the week preceding the ESF with British ambassador to the country Craig Murray having his security clearance withdrawn and then being dismissed from the role entirely. Murray had attracted the anger of his superiors by pointing out the brutal reality of the Karimov regime's human rights record. I have followed the situation in the country on and off for much of this year and so when I noticed an event in the ESF programme entitled, "Campaigning against the Death Penalty (China and Uzbekistan)," I made a point of attending.

The seminar was organised by Amnesty International and a France-based organisation called the Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH, The International Federation of Human Rights). Despite the title attention was focused primarily on Uzbekistan and Belarus was also drawn into the discussion. This reflects a new Amnesty campaign (please take the time to sign the petition) to encourage both countries, the last executors in the region, "abolish the death penalty in law and practice, and by doing so make Europe and Central Asia a death penalty - free zone."

The seminar began with an informative background on the use of the death penalty in the region. After the collapse of the USSR all 15 new states has the penalty on their statute books, but 9 have subsequently abolished it and 4 have moratoria, however 2 of these apply only to the carrying out of the sentence, the other 2 extend to the sentence itself. Kyrgyzstan, for instance, has a moratorium, but 140 people remain on death row. The speaker argued that NGO pressure had played a crucial role in achieving those improvements which have emerged.

Uzbekistan is a particularly serious example. In September 2001, President (dictator might be a more accurate term) Islam Karimov claimed that around a 100 people were executed in the country every year. NGOs suggest that the real figure could be twice that. The treatment of suspects and those on death row is also a serious issue. In December 2002 the UN Special Rapponteur visited the country and reported that torture was "systemic". More encouragingly, 20 sentences have apparently been commuted thanks to international pressure.

The key speakers in the seminar were two women from Mothers Against the Death Penalty in Uzbekistan, an NGO based in the country. The first had lost her son to the country's "justice" system. He had been arrested and then tortured in order to obtain a confession. This had failed and he had only agreed to sign a confession when his tormentors had threatened his mother. After a kangaroo court trial he had been sentenced to death. He was executed on the day his mother was supposed to visit, without her being given any advance warning. To this day, she does not know where her son is buried as officials refuse to tell her.

The second speakers from the organisation had a brother who was currently on death row, where he had been for almost two years. He was accused of terrorism, which under laws passed by Karimov made her, as a family member, a criminal as well leaving her unable to find employment. He had been beaten on several occasions, once in front of his father. On one occasion he was beaten so badly that when his sister went to visit him, she didn't recognise him. She was unable to see him more than a maximum of once a month and described the knowledge that death could come at anytime as the worst torture.

Both speakers recounted stories of being approached for bribes to save their relatives' lives. Sentences in murder cases, for instance, can range from 15 years to life, with the former a possibility if you can afford to bribe the police. The second speaker was told that she could save her brother's life with $20,000, a figure she could not hope to raise given the means of the average citizen in the country.

The meeting then turned briefly to China. The People's Republic apparently has 65 crimes punishable by death, including corruption. In 2003 a minister claimed that 10,000 people had been executed. This had encouraged FIDH to begin plans for a campaign around the 2008 Olympics to be held in Beijing.

This was followed by a question and answer session, primarily focusing on the two representatives from Mothers Against the Death Penalty. They were asked at one point for their opinions on the dismissal of Craig Murray and responded by describing him as a man of honour who felt the pain of ordinary people in the country, who the British should be proud of. Considered alongside the comments of 9 opposition parties in a letter to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Parliament reported in the Independent on Wednesday, it is clear that Murray has turned the rhetoric about "hearts and minds" into a reality. That he has been removed from his post is a great shame, both for the victims of Karimov's regime and for the UK which will presumably now step up its report for that same regime.

It's Getting Hot In Here...

The sheer scale of the ESF and huge variety of events which you could chose to attend was at times overwhelming. As a consequence you couldn't possibly get to all the meetings you might like to and I for one ended up selecting many more or less at random. This highly complex selection procedure resulted in me attending two meetings looking at global warming, the first focused on the phenomenon consequences for development, while the latter was ostensibly about emissions trading, although the discussion seemed more focused on the Kyoto protocol and other international agreements concerned with the problem.

My notes from the two meetings stretch to several pages, but much of what I recorded would probably be of little interest were I to attempt to write it up given my own, admittedly limited, knowledge of the area. Instead I will attempt to tease out the elements which I thought were particularly interesting and eye opening.

One idea which ran through the first meeting was the relationship between global warming and the north-south relationship. It was pointed out that the problem is largely the historical responsibility of the West, but that it is the Global South, who are the least able to cope, who will be the worst hit. That said, speakers argued that we are already beginning to see the consequences of global warming even in the developed world. The deaths in last year's French heatwave were cited as an example, with the proviso that the consequences in the Third World are likely to be far worse.

Particularly worrying were statistics which were cited which showed that if nothing were done 1,053,000,000 people would be at an increased risk of water shortages. Even if Kyoto were implemented in full, 800,000,000 would still be at an increased risk. Nonetheless the speaker (her name escapes me, but I think she was a professor) argued that because the likely consequences are so serious and irreversible we cannot afford to do nothing on the basis of scientific uncertainty (although she made a convincing case for the reality of global warming).

By far the most impressive speaker was Andrew Simms from the New Economics Foundation. His speech consisted of a fascinating argument about western responsibility for climate change, which I could not hope to recount in detail here although a few of his points merit repeating, even out of context. He discussed the gold stolen from the people's of Latin America and used to fund the development of the west. He cited an activist who argued that this should be seen as a friendly loan - any other interpretation would see it as an act of war - on which compound interest should be repayable at the usual rate. Had this been done the weight of a pile of gold equal in value to the total amount of the interest would apparently be greater than the weight of the Earth. Simms also revealed that one company was presenting coal as an "alternative" fuel, arguing that it is an alternative to wood.

My favourite comment was his description of emissions trading as a "trade in stolen goods" (because the consequences of global warming flow from northern exploitation of southern resources). He added to this later by describing carbon sequestration (the planting of forests to "offset" carbon emissions) as "carbon laundering". He also had an amusing, if elaborate, analogy for the plight of those in the Third World in which he described someone returning to their home to find it full of uninvited guests from the north using up the air and who had also left the taps and gas running, causing serious damage to the premises. In this situation, he argued, the claims of the uninvited guests that they were helping the homeowners by virtue of small aid payments would hardly be credible.

The meeting on emissions trading was much drier and there is little I feel compelled to recount here, apart from noting the proliferation of firms and inter-governmental organisations swarming around the issue, seen as a major market opportunity.

The ESF and Ableism

As I've mentioned previously I made a point while at the ESF of not attending meetings on issues I felt that I was intimately familiar with. I particularly avoided meetings on the Iraq War as I thought there was little chance of much being said that I didn't already know. Some people might appreciate the echo chamber effect of listening to people expound their own opinions for them with cheering and applause at the appropriate junctures. It isn't my thing, however. In this spirit one of the first meetings I attended was one on disability rights. This is an issue I'm not totally unaware of and I'd read a bit on the subject beforehand, but my knowledge was limited and I wouldn't have felt particularly qualified to write about it.

Much of interest was said. One speaker began his contribution by denouncing psychiatry. From what I recall the nicest thing he said in the course of this was that it was the least empirical of sciences. Another issue mentioned was the idea of disability as a social construct, encompassing a wide range of conditions and handicaps. This was set against the mainstream view of the disabled as somehow less than human. Such an interpretation was not entirely new to me, but I think it is one which deserves much wider consideration, if not acceptance.

Speakers also drew links with other issues, notably the war in Iraq and the Israeli occupation of Palestine. They pointed out that disabled people are less able to flee if attacked and recalled the disabling of many thousands by bombs and other weapons. Some mention was made of trade unionists, much of it critical of their lack of action on the issue.

One of the more troubling comments dealt with difficulties the organisers had encountered in trying to get disability rights onto the agenda of the ESF. These had apparently been considerable, although the presence of at least two seminars dealing with the issue in the programme was testament to these problems having been surmounted. They also noted the paucity of meetings with sign language translation and indeed this was the only meeting I saw with such a service, although a friend tells me that there was sign language at one of the other meetings they attended.

All too often ableism, discrimination against those with a disability, is an issue forgotten by those who strongly oppose other forms of oppression. The presence of disability rights activists at the ESF and a chance for them to disseminate their ideas is potentially an important step towards the correction of that problem. It is to be hoped that it is a step which will be built upon.

Putting on the Pressure

It seems like a good idea, although I'm not sure why, to begin my reporting of last weekend at the end and work back. Although there were some events on the Sunday evening, for most people the ESF ended with the demonstration against the occupation of Iraq.

Called by the Stop the War Coalition, the march went from Russell Square to Trafalgar Square. Subsequent reports and various activists have bandied around all sorts of estimates about numbers in attendance, ranging all the way to 100,000 people. In my opinion (and I've been to a lot of these things now) there was a fraction of that number there, probably something much closer to police estimates of 15-20,000 people, although they were very spread out at some points. That said, the march was the most international I've ever been on with prominent contingents from Greece, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Turkey and elsewhere.

There was also a wide range of ideological opinions represented. Various Marxist groups were in attendance, alongside trade unionists, hippies, greenies and a contingent of (apparently predominantly German) anarchists. The latter formed an anti-capitalist block declaring its opposition to "precarity", a concept I've never encountered before, which apparently refers to the precarious situations, without any kind of job security, most people live in under modern, post-industrial capitalist societies.

Even getting to the meeting point was something of a mission as the police (at least I assume it was them) had prevented trains from allowing passengers to disembark at Russell Square station, ostensibly because of "overcrowding", although it hardly looked much busier than it might get during a typical rush hour. Fortunately it was not a very long walk from the next station along to Russell Square and we soon met up with the quickly building demonstration and found our way to the new and quite impressive Nottingham Student Peace Movement banner, apparently knocked up in an hour with some material, orange vinyl and a roll of gaffer tape. This was so impressive in fact that it attracted the attention of several camera crews and would appear in a BBC TV report the next day about political pressure on Geoff Hoon.

Although the rains stayed away, the weather was far from great, but the demonstration was still quite upbeat. The route snaked its way through Bloomsbury, up to the Strand, over to the Southbank, back towards Westminster and then down Whitehall to Trafalgar Square. There was a heavy police presence throughout, although in many cases they remained within the numerous vans parked along the route. One of the most amusing moments was a police line formed in front of Sainsburys as if we were going to storm the place and liberate the contents.

At Trafalgar Square the marchers were adressed by various speaker telling them why they had just marched and singing the praises of the ESF. I've heard all this before and had a fairly good idea what I was there for, so I didn't spend a great deal of time listening to the speakers. Instead I perused the stalls, adding to my trainspotter's list of left-wing papers. Unfortunately in the course of my travels I lost everyone I knew and after a while grew bored, although I did stuble across a samba band (possibly Rhythms of Resistance) that lifted my spirits for a while. Nonetheless after a while I decided to call it a day and headed for my train for the long journey home.

Rather worrying was the emerging fact that several activists had been arrested in the course of the march. Subsequent reports have suggested this included one ESF organiser. On reflection the statement I caught by one speaker (possibly Andrew Murray, chair of the Stop the War Coalition) that he "hoped" they would be released soon is hardly sufficient. Any movement which does not support its imprisoned comrades has no chance of effecting serious social change. We shouldn't be expressing our hope that those arrested are released, but instead demanding this be done immediately and doing all we can to ensure this happens.

It had been a long tiring weekend, but a fascinating and inspiring one. This small contribution to the Iraqi struggle for self-determination seemed a fitting end and it is to be hoped that it has contributed to the political pressures on Geoff Hoon and discouraged him from sacrificing British soliders on the altar of George W. Bush's re-election campaign.

Blogging the ESF

The past weekend has been a blur of ideas, discussion, debate, thought, creativity and action which I'm still too tired to say much of any use about. The European Social Forum attracted activists from across Europe and beyond, a fact particularly visible on the closing demonstration which opposed the ongoing occupation of Iraq.

I attended a wealth of meetings covering a wide range of issues: global warming, Israel-Palestine, disability rights, the death penalty, democracy in the European Union and probably more. I made a point of not going to meetings about issues like the war in Iraq which I have been heavily involved in previously and consider myself fairly knowledgeable about, focusing instead on things I was interested in, but less informed about. Even the Israel-Palestine meeting I went to was concerned less with the occupation itself, but with ways which Israelis and Jews has supported Palestinian efforts to end it.

I intend to write more about my experiences over the coming days, although I am too tired at the moment. I'm likely to be quite busy as I try and catch up with work, so it'll probably take me a while to deal with even a fraction of what I saw, but try and bear with me (and hopefully Dan who also went and surely has much of interest to write). In the meantime you might want to check out this post from my other blog, which touches on one meeting I went to and its relationship with what's happening in the real world and also suggests action which you can take to actually try and improve things.

Moving Swiftly On

Justin Podur has an important post on his recently resurrected blog 'The Killing Train' which I think should be read by anyone interested in understanding what's going on with the election in the US. Rather than focusing on what the candidates say they will do he considers where they draw support from:

I realize there's been a ton written about this but I realized then that the difference between John Kerry and George W. Bush is not so much what they say or what they promise to do or what they will do once in office. The difference is that John Kerry is a slimy politician flailing around looking for a winning formula and George Bush is at the head of a massive, incredibly well organized, incredibly well disciplined, incredibly well resourced, truly revolutionary movement. And movements, radicals ought to understand, are serious business.

Other have drawn similar conclusions, among them Noam Chomsky (whom Podur cites) and Rahul Mahajan, but it is an insight that I believe is all too little understood. It's importance lies not only in terms of our understanding of how the Right operate, but in informing how we respond to them. Simply voting for Kerry is not good enough. If Bush is tossed out in November, the movement from which he draws support will continue to exist, continue to mobilise and continue to influence American policy. If progressives are serious about confronting those whom they claim to oppose than they to are going to have to develop a comparable, sustainable, grassroots movement. Unfortunately at the moment this appears to be something they are not only incapable, but even unwilling to do.

London Calling

This weekend will see London host the third European Social Forum (ESF). This is a huge forum for debate, celebration and protests which will bring together activists and interested parties from across the country, continent and beyond to discuss struggles from around the world against racism, capitalism, imperialism and other examples of injustice. If you can't go, don't worry. Your intrepid reporters will be traveling down tomorrow and will endeavour to bring you news of what goes on, although you might have to wait until we're back to read it.

On a related note, anyone who's interested in going to the anti-occupation demo which will close the forum on Sunday, but unable to go to the rest, should contact Nottingham Stop the War Coalition on 0777 932 8418 for info on coaches.

Dome Sweet Dome

It looks like they might, finally, have found a practical use for the Millennium Dome: the gargantuan white elephant is to be used as accommodation for the European Social Forum. This was reported in today's Guardian and now appears to be official (I, for one, have been emailed about it by those involved in organising the event). The structure will apparently be home for three nights to some 5,000 people at a cost of £10 each. Anyone coming to the ESF who's interested in taking advantage of this once in a millennium (!) opportunity should get in soon. Details on the ESF website.

Dishonour Among Thieves

The scandal of the Anglo-American treatment of the population of the Chagos Archipelago is little known, a testament, perhaps, to the servility of the dominant media in both countries. Fortunately there are some who are prepared to speak up about the story. Among them is veteran investigative journalist and perennial irritant of the powerful John Pilger who’s recent documentary “Stealing A Nation,” which was shown on ITV1, will hopefully help to bring the issue to people’s attention.

The largest island in the archipelago, Diego Garcia, is the site of an extensive US military base. Pilger reveals that the island is home to 2,000 troops, 30 warships, 2 nuclear cleared berths, 2 bomber runways and a satellite spy station. The US describes the base as an “indispensable platform for policing the world” and it played a central role in the assault on Afghanistan and the wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003. He does not mention, however, worrying reports that the island is also the site of a secretive Guantanamo Bay-style detention facility.

Whatever one’s opinions on the base’s role within US foreign policy, few will fail to be horrified by the story which lies behind its existence. A “shocking, almost incredible story,” as Pilger notes, which involves the forced exile of the island’s indigenous population.

The Chagos Archipelago belongs to the UK and was retained when Mauritius became independent, by its incorporation into the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT). This was done, because of an agreement between the US and UK that Diego Garcia would be made available to the US for a base. Additionally the US wanted the island and the archipelago “swept and sanitised”, which meant that the 2,000 people living there had to be forced from their homes. Some found themselves unable to return to the islands after making visits to Mauritius, others were told that they might be bombed, others were simply loaded onto ships and taken to a prison on the Seychelles, now demolished. Pilger focuses particular attention on the fate of the 1,000 pet dogs who were gassed using exhaust fumes from military vehicles in order to encourage the islanders to leave.

Alongside the removal of the population, there were also extensive machinations on the part of Foreign Office mandarins to ensure the whole affair was kept secret. Much of this effort was centred around promulgating the idea that the Chagossians were not a settled population, but rather transient labourers, which they knew to be untrue. Lawyer for the islanders Richard Gifford opines that all they were concerned about was that they might be caught, the effect on the people who they had exiled was essentially irrelevant. One former official, interviewed by Pilger, seeks to defend a (now deceased) colleague who described the islanders in a memo as “a few Tarzans and Man Fridays,” by explaining that he would not have written such a thing if he had known it would enter the public domain.

Most of the population ended up living in Mauritius where many died as a result of the poverty which they found themselves in, or because of “sadness”. Rates of suicide, alcoholism and drug use were chronic and conditions have improved little in the years since their exile began. Pilger visited a family who had been filmed in 1982 living in abject poverty with 25 sleeping in shifts in one room. Twenty-two years later he finds them in the same house, in much the same conditions.

Despite their dire situation, the Chagossians have not given up and continue to fight for the right to return to their homes. In November 2000 they won a major victory in the High Court, which ruled that the expulsion of the islanders was illegal. The case also brought to light many files revealing the truth behind the expulsions. As a result of the ruling, the order expelling them from their homes had to be rewritten, allowing the islanders the right to resettle on the islands. The UK Government, however, insisted that treaty obligations with the US meant that Diego Garcia itself had to be excluded from resettlement

In June of this year, the government went even further, introducing two Orders in Council which prevented anyone from setting foot on the Chagos Islands. Orders in Council are a crown power which allow the government to enact law without any democratic oversight. Pilger comments that dictatorships operate in a similar fashion, albeit without the “quaint ritual”.

Overall the programme does a good job of dealing with the scandal and will hopefully go some way to countering the widespread ignorance about the plight of the Chagossians. It might be criticised, like much of Pilger’s work, for being a little didactic. The programme book-ended by shots of Pilger talking straight to camera in which he explains its significance, seemingly in case anyone might have missed the point. This, however, is a minor criticism of an important programme.

The Peace Movement will probably have a video showing of the documentary in the near-future for anyone that missed it. In the meantime, booklets looking at the issues dealt with in the programme are available for £2.50 from 08708303481. Further information can be gleaned for free from the website of the UK Chagos Support Association, which has links to various other good resources. Anyone interested in getting involved around the issue should start there as well, but might also be interested in the newly established Student Friends of Chagos email discussion group.

All Aboard For London!

If there's anyone out there who can't get along to the European Social Forum, but who wants to go to the anti-occupation demo on the final Sunday (17th October), they may be interested in coach transport being organised from Nottingham by Nottingham Stop the War Coalition. Phone 0777 932 8418 for more info.

Amber light for Syria?

On Tuesday, Dan posted on Mark Levey's article about possible US/Israeli action against Iran. At risk of presenting the image that I disagree with everything he says (I really don't) I feel a few comments are in order.

Firstly I am very dubious about assertions that the US is likely to launch another Iraq-style invasion in the short to medium-term. The US has bitten off more than it can chew in Iraq and as long as it remains bogged down there, cannot mobilise sufficient forces to carry out another invasion along similar lines. This doesn't preclude intervention in more subtle ways. Milan Rai argues that this may well mean a covert destabilisation attempt. Levey gives an idea of what can be expected in the article, noting that elements in the Bush Administration had sought to aid dissident groups, but been unable to find any credible groups to support.

I'm also not entirely convinced that Iran is at the top of the list of targets. Certainly Israeli hawks are gunning for it and US rhetoric suggests that conflict is a possibility, but there are other possibilities. Although it has attracted minimal attention, the US also seems to have its eyes set on Syria. Recall the noises made about the country shortly after the end of the first phase of the Iraq War. This, coupled with the passing of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 and UN Security Council Resolution 1559, suggests that action against the country is a very real possibility, although what form this could take remains unclear. In some ways belligerence against Syria is more worrying, as it seems to be a bipartisan issue - Kerry co-sponsored the Syria Accountability Act, for instance.

Where Did It All Go Wrong?

Rahul Mahajan has written a highly recommended (and quite short) piece on the collapse of the anti-war movement. In light of the string of disasters which have befallen the occupiers he argues,

Across the political spectrum, people know that we were right and they were wrong. Yet there has hardly been a peep out of the antiwar movement. There RNC protest was great, but it was basically an anti-Bush protest – there wasn’t even any messaging about the just-concluded offensive against Najaf in which probably 2000 or more people were killed.

The problem is a real one and must be confronted by anyone who is interested in alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi people and exerting influence on US foreign policy.

Mahajan cites two reasons for this collapse, although he acknowledges that there are more: the drive to get Kerry elected and "that, with regard to protest actions, we have dumbed down our message to the ultimate demand 'Bring the troops home now!'" It is his comments on the latter which I find particularly interesting:

I have no problem with calling to end the occupation now. But we have to realize that even people who don’t support the war don’t look to us as some kind of spiritual authority. Nobody cares about our demands. People will listen to our arguments, information, and plans, but no longer to our ultimate demand.

We must, he contends, offer "responses to immediate political developments and transitional positions and campaigns." He argues that the struggle against the occupation of Iraq will be a long one and so to must the campaign against it:

Everything that happens in Iraq should build our base. We must mobilize against bombing of civilian areas and build our base. We must mobilize against torture and build our base. Right now, we must mobilize against Bush administration plans to manipulate the January elections in Iraq (and the upcoming election in Afghanistan). Any election held under military occupation is illegitimate. But we can’t stop the elections in Iraq. Thus, we have to mobilize to ensure that the elections, while remaining illegitimate, are as free and fair as possible. In the process, we bring into the movement people who believe in democracy but were unsure about the occupation; we may even derail plans to fix the elections.

The problems Mahajan presents are serious and how we respond to them could have important consequences.

Who The Hell is Zarqawi Anyway?!

The kidnapping of Kenneth Bigley and the car bombing at Al-Amel, western Baghdad, which claimed the lives of dozens of children, have focused attention on the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his Tawhid and Jihad group. While the names have become increasingly familiar, we still seem to now very little.

Some have translated the 'tawhid' in the group's name as 'unity', but Juan Cole explains that "in Islam what is meant by tawhid is to "affirm the oneness of God" -- ie monotheism." The group adopt an extremist conception of monotheism which excludes Shia Muslims and probably a great many Sunnis. They have expressed these beliefs in a series of high-profile attacks which demonstrate little or no concern for the well-being of innocent Iraqis.

Supporters of the occupation and military officials have made efforts to pin just about every act of violence in the country on the group, but, as Sami Ramadani pointed out in the Guardian last week,

The occupation forces have admitted that the attacks on them by the resistance rose last month to 2,700. And how many of these 2,700 attacks a month were claimed by Zarqawi? Six. Six headline-grabbing, TV-dominating, stomach-churning moments.

Even if we attribute acts to them above and beyond those for which they have themselves claimed responsibility (assuming they did indeed carry them out and are not simply seeking to take 'credit' for attacks by others in pursuit of their own agenda), it is clear they are not as representative of the armed resistance in Iraq as some would have us believe.

The provenance of the oft-repeated accusation that they have links with Al-Qaeda is also dubious. Certainly there are ideological and tactical parallels, but this alone does not demonstrate that they are working in concert. Indeed, Jim Lobe points out that the letter, published by the Project for The New American Century (PNAC) and others, ostensibly from Zarqawi to the Al-Qaeda leadership, undermines claims as to an already existing relationship between the two organisations.

As with anything in Iraq it is difficult to develop an objective picture of the opinions of the Iraqi people, but it appears that Zarqawi and his followers have little or no support among the general population. Sami Ramadani, again, commented,

The vast majority of Iraqis reject Zarqawi and his ilk - as do the resistance and its supporters in Falluja, Sadr City and across Iraq. Many even suspect that the occupation forces are somehow encouraging the likes of Zarqawi, or at least failing to prevent their crimes, as a way of obscuring the fact that most Iraqis now actively support a patriotic and widespread resistance movement.

Indeed, after the Al-Amel bombing, at least some Iraqis held the US responsible.

That said, Rahul Mahajan who has visited Iraq on several occasions, warns,

The United States is, however, creating by its presence another force that could wreak havoc in Iraq, even if, as I think is eminently possible, major political forces can agree to settle things by elections and power-sharing rather than violence. That force includes, but is probably not limited to, Zarqawi's al-Tawhid wal Jihad (Monotheism and Holy War), which is obviously willing to stop at nothing in carrying out acts of random terrorism but which is, it seems, gaining support in some areas of Iraq because it is seen as an effective anti-occupation force. If this kind of cancerous organization can gain a toehold in Iraq, then civil war or worse is a possibility. Of course, even so, the continued U.S. presence just increases the chance that will happen.

I have written elsewhere that, in my opinion, the ongoing occupation is only strengthening the hands of those groups supporters cite as the justification for its continuation. That is very clear in this context.

The occupying forces are going to have to leave eventually. If I'm right and their presence is strengthening the hands of the likes of Zarqawi (not to mention less extreme theocrats like Sadr, another oft-cited justification for the ongoing occupation) then it is surely better that they do so sooner, rather than later, by which time such groups have developed a substantial power base and are in a position to effect a considerable and, most likely negative, influence on Iraqi politics.